Woods ‘at peace’ over caddie furore

MUCH has changed for Tiger Woods since he last sat in a major championship interview room but it was his old caddie Steve Williams which occupied media minds at his pre-PGA Championship press conference yesterday.

Since playing the Masters in April, during which he injured his Achilles tendon and knee, the 14-time major winner has jettisoned the man who helped him win 13 of them and then, on his return to action at last week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, watched Williams assist Adam Scott to victory.

New Zealander Williams had received permission by Woods to caddie for Scott once but when he picked the Australian’s bag up again without consent, his employer terminated their relationship after a dozen years.

Since then Williams has been busy venting his anger at the dismissal but he overstepped the mark in the wake of Scott’s victory last Sunday, to the extent that his new employer’s moment of glory was overshadowed.

Williams copped a backlash from some of Woods’ fellow pros on Tuesday, although Scott said the reaction to the caddie’s comments had been blown out of proportion, so there was keen interest in Tiger’s reaction to the furore when he faced the media yesterday at Atlanta Athletic Club.

After some gentle prodding centring around his current, temporary caddie, best friend Bryon Bell, Woods was finally given the ‘Stevie Question’ and asked to respond to Williams’ comments.

“Well, I was happy to see Stevie and Adam win,” came the reply.

“Adam has been a friend of mine, and same with Stevie. I sent Stevie a nice text after completion, play, congratulating him on his win. It was good to see them go out there and play as well as they did.”

Following some praise for Scott’s play, something Williams had not seen fit to mention last Sunday, Woods was asked if the meeting between his agent Mark Steinberg and Williams which had been photographed outside the Atlanta Athletic Club clubhouse yesterday, had taken the form of a message from his camp being delivered to the caddie.

Woods stonewalled that one, merely confirming the meeting had taken place and later on he spoke of being “at peace” with his decision to let Williams go. As to whether he regretted the way the matter had unfolded, the four-time PGA champion said: “All I control is my life and how I feel, and that’s it. That’s all I can do.”

Later still in the roughly 30-minute session, Woods was asked for his definition of loyalty.

“You love loaded questions, don’t you? You’re a beauty Tom,” he joked with his inquisitor. “You know, obviously it’s trust earned over time.”

Still time for more jousting, Woods refused to divulge the content of the texts but concluded the matter with a telling, one-word answer when asked if he had been surprised his former caddie’s comments.

“Yeah,” replied Woods, with a nod of the head.